Since I’ve been running this business full-time for a little over a year, there are a few things I’ve learned along the way. It’s REALLY easy to continue to keep working late into the night, especially when my job is run right right out of my home. I can easily sit at my desk all day long or be on my phone all night, answering emails. But that’s not fair to me. And more importantly, that’s not fair to my husband. The same way that Jose shuts off his computer and leaves his job at 5:30pm, I realized I had to do the same thing. For him, for me, for our marriage… for my SANITY! I realized when I started to work non-stop that my personal life would take a seat on the back burner. I would end up spending my weekends upstairs on the computer editing photos while my husband, on his ONLY days off during the week, would be downstairs watching Netflix… when we SHOULD have been spending our free weekends together and maintaining a happy life together. No one wants their life controlled by work and I realized I had to put the same boundaries on my job, as much as I could. So how am I doing this? One simple thing… OFFICE HOURS!

So how does a photographer have office hours?? I know it sounds silly because there are weekends filled with weddings and engagement sessions and weekdays filled with site visits and potential client meetings. So what my “office hours” stand for is strictly EMAILS! When a client emails me at my email address, they will notice my office hours are typed in to the end of every email… 9:00am-5:30pm. What this means is this is the ONLY time I will answer emails. It doesn’t mean I don’t see emails after that (I confess, I do check my emails every night before bed on my phone) but just that I’m not going to respond. The ONLY time I allow myself to respond is if it pertains to something happening the very next day (like a session, meeting or wedding) and I absolutely HAVE to respond to them ASAP. That’s okay, sometimes this happens! But for the most part, once it’s 5:30pm I am no longer responding to my emails. Why? Because I’m bringing my dogs on their nightly walk, I’m figuring out dinner for when Jose comes home, I’m probably cleaning up my office, living room or bedroom (I like a NEAT home you guys!).. I’m doing the things I have to do to maintain my HOME and my personal life 🙂 It’s SO important to me that once Jose is home from work, I’m officially “off the clock” too and not sitting at my computer the rest of the night. But it’s okay because the next day at 9:00am, I am RIGHT back on my computer answering emails. And hey, sometimes I am up way earlier and responding even EARLIER than 9:00am! 🙂

I also will NOT be responding to emails during Holidays! This past Fourth of July weekend, I turned on the vacation email response and it felt SO GOOD to have off on Friday, along with Jose, and actually enjoy the holiday. The good thing is I made sure to prioritize all my emails and blog posts before then so I really didn’t have to do any work at all! And luckily I have the best clients ever who didn’t mind the vacation mode and let me enjoy my weekend along with them 🙂 You know, of COURSE I will work weddings on weekends and engagement sessions. Of COURSE I will have client meetings after 5:30pm and that’s okay! All I’m doing is the days that I’m not out and about with my clients, I am NOT allowing myself to sit at my desk all day long and be a slave to my Mac 🙂

And hey, what’s a blog post without photos? Enjoy the little snippets of my office 🙂 I am ALWAYS changing this office around so I haven’t gotten around to actually photographing it but I REALLY hope to share an Office Tour soon!